


cartoon graveyard

by feverbeats



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Genderqueer Character, Other, Villains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-18
Updated: 2014-04-18
Packaged: 2018-01-19 21:05:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1483912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feverbeats/pseuds/feverbeats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Edward Nashton. E Nygma. The Riddler. Eddie.</p>
<p>Those are answers. So what's the question?</p>
            </blockquote>





	cartoon graveyard

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously this version of the Riddler comes from multiple different places in canon and also multiple different places outside canon. Comics, right? Several of the ideas and scenes in this are thanks to [bluestalking](http://archiveofourown.org/users/bluestalking/pseuds/bluestalking), including the Joker riddle and the flock of rats. Fits with this somewhat more cheerful [OT3 villain porn](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1461424), if you want. Also here is [an 8tracks mix](http://8tracks.com/feverbeats/cartoon-graveyard) about this story. Thank you [bluestalking](http://archiveofourown.org/users/bluestalking/pseuds/bluestalking) and [underdebate](http://underdebate.dreamwidth.org/) for looking over this fic for me! Title comes from "You Can Call Me Al."
> 
> Full warnings: Misgendering, abusive relationships, street harassment, institutional abuse and gaslighting in a mental health setting, violence, consent issues of most kinds.

_Edward Nashton. E Nygma. The Riddler. Eddie._

_Those are answers. So what's the question?_

New Arkham, they call it. Not just _Arkham_ , because everybody knows that Arkham was never this clean or well-regulated. The walls are thicker. It's legitimately hard to break out.

But nobody tries, now. Batman's not Batman. There are, no joke, flying cars. And it's dangerous out there for some of the old villains, and not just because their bones are getting brittle.

Eddie hasn't broken out in--Oh, probably three years now. It used to be that three _months_ was considered a long stretch, like you were being lazy or something.

Today, Eddie has been sent down the hall to see a doctor. New Arkham does this sometimes, as if they actually want to check up on their patients and provide some kind of treatment. Eddie remembers "treatment" at old Arkham. They remember what happened in solitary and they remember all the screaming. They're kind of nostalgic for it now.

The doctor is a new doctor, and young. That's enough to make Eddie consider this a bad day. The doctor's got that look in his eye that says, _Oh my god, it's the Riddler, he's real, I'm looking at a fucking legend._

Eddie is a shitty legend, and they're used to being left alone, for the most part, these days. Nobody wants to talk to washed-up sideshow freaks. Good. Eddie hates doctors. Always has. Yes, all of them. Don't ask.

"So, Mr. Nygma," the doctor says. His voice quivers with excitement.

Wrong twice. Wrong _twice_. Eddie can't believe it.

"Sure," they say. "Close enough."

The doctor frowns and glances down at his impressively large file. Is that Eddie's entire medical history? Ha ha, as if anyone but Jon has ever managed to compile that.

"Edward," the doctor tries again.

" _No_ ," Eddie says.

Giving up, the doctor says, "I'm Doctor James. I was hoping we could have a little chat."

"Uh huh." Eddie clenches their first around the coin in their pocket and starts to fidget with it. They hate this part.

It's pathetic, but Eddie still has Harvey's coin. There's something obscene about touching something that Harvey didn't like other people to touch, but--well, fair's fair, and Harvey isn't here to argue.

"You've been in Arkham off and on for--" The doctor whose name Eddie has already forgotten glances down at his file. The room is too bright. "A long time. A _long_ time. Since were you--"

"Twenty-eight," Eddie suggests, hoping the doctor won't keep looking.

"Twenty," the doctor corrects, frowning at the file.

Eddie winces. Yeah. True. Maybe nineteen, actually.

"And," the doctor persists, "you seem not to have gotten very far in treatment in those fifty-odd years. I'm hoping to change that."

Eddie can't _fault_ the kid. They haven't gotten far. No one's tried very hard to treat them. Then again, their disorders aren't causing them or anyone else any trouble these days.

"Now, as I understand it," the doctor says, "you've been formally diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder, but that's a very old diagnosis, and the doctor who gave it to you was--" He pauses and frowns.

"I know," Eddie says. "But he was right."

"But you don't have the homicidal tendencies that some of them do." _Them_. There we go. He catches himself and says, "That some patients here do. However, if we want to be thorough, we could also address the transvestism. You do cross-dress?"

"No!" Eddie says, surprised into anger. "Look, you've seen what I used to wear. That's pretty much it, except for jeans and t-shirts. I tried suits for a while. I don't _cross-dress_." Who the hell put that in their file? That wasn't Jon.

The doctor scribbles a note. "And how _is_ the OCD? Do you still have compulsions on a regular basis?"

Eddie sighs and settles down in their chair. Fuck it, they're not going to get upset by some kid with an IQ lower than theirs. "Mm hmm. But I have enough puzzles in my cell. Some of them are almost hard enough, even. That takes care of it, mostly."

"You don't feel compelled to commit crimes?"

They never _did_ , except by curiosity. Eddie flips the coin across the back of their knuckles absently. The doctor's eyes widen.

"Is that--?"

"No," Eddie says, and vanishes the coin. They don't remember who taught them that trick. Jervis, maybe.

"Did you know him? Two-Face?"

"Riddle me this," Eddie says, just to see what the doctor will do. His eyes widen gratifyingly. "Just kidding," Eddie says. They smile. This is awful. But Eddie is still alive because a) they're a coward and b) they're aggressively blase about everything that happens to them.

Eddie misses old Arkham, where at least the bad things that happened to them weren't documented. Jon's the only one who wrote things down, and they fired him.

The doctor shifts in his seat and says, "Tell me about the Joker."

They all ask that. Everybody wants to know. Until there's a body, nobody will believe he's gone. Eddie and the others know where the body is, of course. One of them saw Batman bury him, and now they all know. It was only fair to tell everyone the secret that made them safe. Sometimes people think all the people who wind up in Arkham are the same, but they're not. There are degrees, of course. The ones who don't kill unless they have to, like Eddie and Selena. The ones who skirt the edges of ordinary crime, like Oswald.

But really there are only two categories. There's the Joker and then there's everyone else.

When the doctor is finally done being frustrated by Eddie, Eddie goes to the rec room. They're in minimum security, because everybody knows they're a low-risk embarrassment. That's okay.

"You have the face of someone who's met Doctor James."

Eddie smiles and takes a seat in one of the comfortable chairs by the barred window. "Yeah, thanks for the warning, Jonathan. You're an asshole."

Jonathan has somehow gotten himself on minimum security, too, even though he's wearing rags again. It changes, day to day. He's articulate and clever and still very handsome, but he's also a scrambled mess. Eddie would rather have him here than not, though. Nobody else is here.

"What did he diagnose you with?" Jonathan asks.

Eddie shrugs. "Nothing new. Oh, transvestism, for fuck's sake."

Jonathan laughs wildly. "Oh, modern medicine. Is that still on the books?"

Eddie shrugs again, irritably. "Apparently. Did you tell them anything about me?"

"He asked if I knew you," Jon says, as if remembering carefully. Not an age thing. He's always been a little scattered. "I said I did."

"'I know her?'" Eddie suggests.

Jon nods. "I should have said _them_ , yes?"

"Either," Eddie says. "Or he, if you wanted them to leave me _alone_. They asked me about the Joker. And."

"Harvey," Jonathan says. "Yes, me too."

"And you said?"

Jonathan frowns. "I said he was a flock of rats sometimes."

Jon's way of keeping quiet, maybe. Eddie is grateful for that, anyway. Harvey isn't the doctor's business, not anymore than any of the rest of them are.

That night, Eddie is alone in their cell, and they can't sleep. It's too quiet, and now they're worried about Jon. If he's wearing rags again, he's probably about to spiral. That means he might wind up in solitary for a few weeks, and Eddie's always afraid it'll be the last time.

It's midnight when the door creaks open. In old Arkham, real Arkham, people used to break into each other's cells all the time. How badly Eddie got hurt depending on whether it was a patient or an orderly. But in new Arkham, that doesn't happen. Even so, Eddie lies completely still, pretending to be asleep.

"Someone's not looking so spry."

_Fuck_. Fear like a bolt of electricity shoots through Eddie's body before they even register why. They look up and see him standing above them, white and smiling.

After a second, Eddie forces out cheerfully, "You almost had me fooled. Your makeup's better than some of them manage. What are you doing here? They never throw Jokerz in Arkham."

The Joker doubles over laughing and no, no, that is _his laugh_. "Oh, denial springs eternal, cupcake. It's me, all right."

"How?" Eddie manages. Fuck, fuck, they're going to _die_.

"You're the Riddler, you figure it out." He cackles. "Are you even the Riddler anymore? Or are you just some washed-up old hag rotting their way to the grave in prison?"

Even Eddie's murderous dead friends are more polite than the doctors. "I'm always the Riddler," they say.

The Joker nods and pushes Eddie down on the bed. He's still so strong. "So riddle me this, sunshine. Where are all the others?" He leans down and hisses in Eddie's ear, "What happened to old Harvey?"

Eddie winces and shivers away. "Oh, ha, well, you know Harvey. He liked his explosives."

The Joker laughs and laughs until Eddie thinks he won't stop. Then suddenly, he does. "It's nice to know I won't have him underfoot, mucking up my plans," he says. His nails are at Eddie's throat.

"Uh huh," Eddie says. "Lucky you. Most of us are dead or gone. So what _are_ you planning?"

The Joker looks at them shrewdly. "Uh-uh. That one's between me and _Batman_."

"He's not," Eddie says. "Batman."

"The _real_ Batman," the Joker spits. "Not that kid. But he'll get what's coming, too."

Something about all this is wrong. Eddie can't put their finger on it. When they were a kid, nineteen and in and out of Arkham every week, they sometimes wore makeup. They used to call it putting on their face, which was a joke, of course. Everyone put on makeup of one kind or another, those days, and everyone had a face to put on. Harvey, too. And the Joker, although not many people ever got close enough tell if it was makeup or chemical burns.

Eddie's gotten close enough. It wasn't makeup, but he still always smelled like greasepaint and blood. Tonight he smells wrong.

This isn't the Joker.

_When is a door not a door?_

"Who are you?" Eddie asks.

"Oh," the Joker whispers, "you're _good_. I _am_ the same old Joker. It's just a little more complicated than that. You like complicated, Eddie-boy. You were there."

_The door in the hallway is ajar, and Eddie goes in. The Joker and Harley are nowhere to be seen, but there's a boy strapped to a table._

"Oh," Eddie breathes. They should have stopped it. They should have done something in Arkham, old Arkham, real Arkham.

**Until I am measured, I am not known. Yet how you miss me, when I have flown. What am I?**

"Time to pay, old man!"

People like to hurt Eddie. It's a thing. They're an easy target. And there are so few left. The new guard is fast, vicious, and does not stick together.

And Eddie was on their "turf." Time was, Gotham was everybody's turf, all the parts, or at least they traded off. Harvey could use the docks one week, then when the place went up in flames, Scarface would move in two doors down the next week. Now, nobody's safe except the kids with faces painted to look like a dead man's.

"Sorry," Eddie says, but they can't even sound sincere. These kids can't answer riddles. They can barely think for themselves.

_Old man._ Eddie's not going to let that one go. The newest model of their cane has a knife in the handle and a razor in the base. Important safety features. Eddie is about to ask them a clever riddle that ends with a knife in someone's hand, but one of the bigger Jokerz trips them and then they can't get up.

Another Joker kicks Eddie in the throat and they remember Oswald calling them a good girl. Another knifes open the seam down the side of Eddie's suit and they remember Jon going up against Falcone for them. This is not Eddie's Gotham.

"Fuck, don't," Eddie manages. They just sound tired. This is boring. This is _done_. And they can't even respect these kids.

"Watch it, it's Batman!"

Eddie looks up and doesn't see Batman. They see some lithe, tall kid in a streamlined suit that faintly resembles Batman's. Right. The new kid.

"Didn't anyone teach you to respect your elders?" the kid asks.

Eddie is going to scream. This is the worst. There are _quips_.

At least the kid and the Jokerz get distracted enough with each other that Eddie can stand up--mostly. They don't think anything's broken, but they're also not getting too far. The new kid is fast, too. He gets the Jokerz unconscious or tied up before Eddie can get two streets over.

"Hey!"

Eddie turns around, trying to look innocent. "Oh, yeah, thanks for the rescue, Batman."

"Hand it over," the kid says.

_You don't even know who I am,_ Eddie thinks. _You don't even recognize me._ The years without Batman were bad, but this is worse.

"Hand what over?" they ask. This game isn't worth playing, but Eddie has to.

"Don't think I missed you grabbing the tech those Jokerz were boosting," the kid says. He sounds stern, but he doesn't have the _voice_.

"Boosting," Eddie mutters. The tech _Eddie_ was boosting. Pride beats out caution for a second and they say, "Listen, kid, do you know who I am?"

The kid is quiet for a minute. No, _listening_. Eddie figured that one out, and they wonder if anyone else has.

"Riddler," the kid says, suddenly certain. Eddie can feel him looking them up and down, looking for green, or tights, or whatever the hell Eddie was wearing the last time real Batman was taking pictures.

"So you're good at guessing," Eddie says, knowing it's a lie. "What does he say about me? The real Batman?"

The kid stiffens, uncertain again. "I don't know what you're--"

"I knew there had to be a catch. A reason so many put up with someone new taking up the mantle. He's not dead." Eddie had wondered. A lot. They all had.

"Doesn't matter," the kid says, maybe in response to something in his headset, maybe not. "Hand it over. I don't care who you are or what you think you know."

"That's Batman, all business," Eddie says. They almost say, _But you know, you're only Batman because there can't be any more Robins._

"And you should be in Arkham," the kid says, this time almost certainly in response to the headset.

"What?" Eddie hasn't been to Arkham since before the last Robin stopped being Robin. Arkham isn't even Arkham anymore. And they've heard plenty about New Arkham. Jon says--Well, he says a lot of things.

"C'mon." The kid grabs them, harder than necessary, especially given that they can barely walk, and drags them toward the parked, hovering Batmobile.

**What's no sooner spoken than broken?**

Eddie's been avoiding Arkham since it shut down--No sense stirring up dust and risking a trip to whatever upgraded version's being offered--but tonight they're angry. The Joker causes enough trouble for his own kind on a good day, but this last week has been hell. Batman's been shaking down every criminal in town, and especially the ones who are anything like _friendly_ with the Joker. Eddie needs to know if he really took the kid.

It could have been someone else, but realistically? No. Eddie and Batman both know that's not true.

Arkham is already falling apart, but it's still very much _itself_ , and it makes Eddie's skin crawl. No doctors, no locked doors, but Eddie's got a good memory. They should have brought Jonathan.

Then Eddie hears something. Someone's crying. Fuck, this is going to be awful, and they're not going to be able to stand it, and the Joker's going to be _so angry_. They keep going, though, because--why? Sympathy? They have way too much of that.

One floor up and two rooms down, there's an open door. Eddie goes in. The only person in the room in a teenage boy strapped to a table. Black hair, blue eyes.

The first thing Eddie thinks is _It could have been me._ Irrational, it couldn't have been, Batman doesn't love him. But Eddie is young and brilliant and got in the Joker's way. Got in Batman's way, too.

"Hey, kid," Eddie says, fascinated. "What's your name?"

Robin's teeth clench. "Jay . . . Jay." An unnatural laugh bursts out of him and then he looks at Eddie straight on and completely sane. "You don't get the joke," he says flatly.

"Joker Junior," Eddie says carefully.

The boy shakes his head. "He doesn't get it either. Bruce would. About making me into . . ." He dissolves into helpless laughter again.

"Bruce," Eddie whispers. A riddle isn't any fun when someone hands you the solution.

The boy blinks at Eddie, or past them. "This is a poison town, a sick place,"

"Yeah, no, I know," Eddie says, hands in pockets. "I know." _I'm really sorry_ , they want to say. But the Joker could be here anywhere.

So they leave him there.

Five weeks later, Eddie makes a choice. It's not a choice to be a good person, and to be honest, it's mostly to confirm what they're sure they know now. They've done their homework now. Dick Grayson. Jason Todd. Tim Drake. Stephanie Brown. It's all painfully obvious when they think about it (and Stephanie they should have known--they were in her father's house, for Christ's sake).

The kid is home alone with the butler when Eddie goes to Wayne Manor.

"I'm not going to hurt you."

"Ha." It comes out dead and nothing like a laugh. "You were there. In Arkham."

"Do you know what the Joker does to people who get in his way?" Not that he would have helped. Maybe.

The boy named Tim Drake stares at him levelly.

"Yeah," Eddie says. "My point."

Tim nods. "I'm not angry. I'm not anything right now."

Eddie really, really wants to leave. They shouldn't be here. Why did they come? Fear, curiosity, a need to _know_. A compulsion.

"Is your real name Nygma?" Tim asks. He looks aloofly clinical.

"What? No. No, that's a joke."

Tim winces imperceptibly.

"Nashton," Eddie says. "Fair's fair."

"If you tell anyone about me, about Bruce . . ." Tim frowns, concentrating.

"You'll kill me like you killed the Joker," Eddie suggests. In brutal, terrified, self-defense.

Tim looks aghast. "No, I--"

"Who would I tell?" Eddie asks. "The Joker and Harley are gone. It's a solution."

"You like to give people solutions," Tim says shrewdly.

"Not at the cost of my life," Eddie says. They have a compulsion, but they're going to have to find a way to keep quiet about this one. They might have to hurt themself. "Trust me," they say, when Tim continues to look skeptical, "I _would_ die."

Tim puts his feet up under him. Eddie can see that his knuckles are white. "I failed him. I did the two worst things I could have done."

"Told the truth and saved his life," Eddie says, solving it. "You're a fucking monster, yeah."

Tim starts to convulse with laughter.

"Shit," Eddie whispers. If Batman finds them here, they're fucked. "Okay, kid, calm down."

"C-calm down," Tim says. "Calm down. Calm, calm--"

Eddie hears footsteps. Probably just the butler, but--

"Sorry," they whisper, and they run.

And they can run to Harvey again. He's done playing hero, thank god, and back to blowing things up in twos and having manfully homoerotic shootouts with James Gordon. He's in a new upscale apartment, a lot like all the others, furnished in tans and with a mini-bar. Eddie goes there. They want to get so drunk. They want to leave the city forever.

After all, they never have. Maybe Tim Drake is right, and there are other places that aren't like this. Maybe you can get out if you try.

Harvey, unlike Eddie, has been outside Gotham. He says he went to high school in on the other side of the state. He likes to talk about it, because even though he comes from a shitty family, he got a scholarship to some prep school. He was at school with Bruce Wayne, actually, and he brags about knowing him.

Eddie realizes, like a switch being flipped. Harvey knows, has always known, who Batman is.

On the landing, Eddie stops. They don't have anywhere to go but home, so that's where they go. Nobody leaves Gotham.

A few months later, Tim Drake does. Eddie counts that as a win and stays.

**You can have me but cannot hold me;  
** Gain me and quickly lose me.  
If treated with care I can be great,  
And if betrayed I will break.  
What am I? 

Eddie does a lot of things. Cancer, once. Then going really, truly insane.

They come back from that different. Marginally braver, that's how. Maybe that's how the Joker can do the things he does.

"You look good."

Eddie thinks that might be true, but Oswald really just sounds relieved that Eddie hasn't gone and done something monumentally stupid again.

"Yeah? You like the tattoos?" In the shape of question marks, just a few, just peeking out from the sleeves and collar of the shirt that's black, not green. Their hair is darker, less orange, more brown.

"Ugh," Osward says. They're in a back room of the Iceberg Lounge, currently legitimate. "Can't stand them, no. But otherwise. I hear you went under the knife, too. I wouldn't have trusted Hush, myself."

Eddie shrugs. "Doctor Elliot used to be a good doctor." A few months ago. Before he went crazy. But after he fixed Harvey's face.

"He did a good job."

Oswald is looking at Eddie's nose. But he's probably thinking, _How much surgery did he give you?_ Eddie's not telling.

"It's not all cosmetic, anyway," Eddie says, batting away Oswald's inquisitiveness and lounging on one of the long black couches. "I've been doing better work lately. Bigger. More dangerous. You know, an actual makeover."

"Good work, Eddie," Oswald says, sounding pleased. Someone appreciates what Eddie's doing. "But watch yourself," he continues. "Are you doing this because Harvey is?"

"This isn't what Harvey's doing." Eddie isn't going to get better. He's going to get-- _they're_ going to get worse.

Oswald clears his throat. "He'll be back, you know. We all come back."

It sounds pat, but it's true. Anyone who crosses that line once will cross it again.

"Have you been to see him?" Oswald asks.

"I have to go," Eddie says.

Standing around talking to Oswald isn't going to be helpful. He's not a madman, he's a mogul. He doesn't understand the magnitude of what Harvey's done.  Eddie goes to see Ivy. She's been closer to the other side lately, too, doing more projects Eddie wouldn't call strictly criminal.

"You look good," Ivy says.

"Ugh," Eddie says. "Shut up. No, I don't. A little work, that's all."

"You're in a bad mood." One of her vines twines around her neck lazily. She looks tired. "Just a little work?"

"Or whatever. Has anyone spoken to Harvey?" It's easy to just ask, with Ivy. She doesn't play that sort of game.

"He's not taking visitors. Except Gordon. And, someone told me, Bruce Wayne."

" _Why?_ " Eddie asks.

Ivy shrugs. "They went to school together. He's always talking about it. Look, Ed, he'll be back."

"If someone scars him up badly enough?" Eddie snaps. All the flowers in here are making them nervous. Ivy's pheromones are making them nervous. "That's not how madness _or_ morality work!"

"So the new look isn't a new you, either?" Ivy asks.

"It is because I _chose_ it," Eddie says. They swat away the end of a vine. "First the thought, then the form to match it. Understand?"

"I meant to ask," Ivy says after a second. "New name?"

Eddie frowns. "Eddie. Riddler. Those--work."

Ivy nods, and they can't tell if she's impressed or unsurprised. "You should go see him," she says.

"And then what?"

"Worst-case scenario," Ivy says, "he won't want you anymore. And that's worst-case scenario."

"Harv's always capable of being someone's worst-case scenario," Eddie grouses.

"Maybe not anymore."

After Ivy, Eddie goes to the cemetery, because it's easier than going to Harvey's penthouse of repentance where he's pretending that a new face makes him a new man. (Yes, Eddie gets the irony. They always get the irony.)

Usually nobody bothers them here, although Batman's been known to make an appearance. Eddie's never gotten close enough to see who he visits, though. That's a riddle too dangerous to solve head-on. One day Eddie will get it, of course, and then they'll become a valuable commodity for the two days it'll take for the Joker to find them and torture it out of them. No, better not to know, although it gnaws at Eddie, sitting there unsolved.

The night's warm enough, and Eddie is just starting to relax when they see someone sitting on one of the graves. Someone slim, in a trenchcoat and a hat, smoking.

Eddie comes a little closer. _Don't be nervous, you're the Riddler,_ they think.

"Eddie." The woman's voice is scratchy and when she looks up at Eddie, her eyes are huge behind the dull gold of her mask. "I wondered if I'd see you eventually."

"Who are you?" Eddie asks, running through the list of people who want to hurt them.

"Have you seen Harvey?" she asks. She stands up.

"He's around," Eddie says shortly. "Who--"

"Harvey and I don't really run into each other," the woman says.

"He's a little hard to miss!" Eddie snaps.

She gives Eddie a long look. "I'm sorry. Did you think you were his only crazy wife?"

_Gilda_.

Eddie's never met her, but oh, he's heard the stories. Not from Harvey, because right, why tell your pet project about your spouse? But Jonathan talks about her--how she's never been in Arkham, but she was at some women's facility in New York for a while, how she calls herself the Golden Gun and murders mobsters so Harvey will speak to her again. He doesn't.

"We're the same, sort of," Eddie suggests. Mostly because they think she really will kill them.

"Not really," she says.

"You had him before he was broken," Eddie says.

She shakes her head, her dark eyes wide. "Harvey has always been broken."

If there's one thing Eddie's learned from Jonathan, it's that people don't come broken, not unless there are some very specific things wrong with them that clearly aren't wrong with Harvey. Jonathan wasn't always broken. Eddie wasn't, Harley wasn't, probably even the Joker wasn't, although who can say? Harvey certainly wasn't. Eddie's never asked about Harvey's father, but they're good at riddles.

They just say, "Okay."

"I've been asking about Harvey," Gilda says. "And I've learned almost as much about you as I have about him."

Eddie kind of wishes they had a knife or something. "Yeah?"

She tilts her chin toward them. She looks like a doll. "You're younger than I am. You don't kill. You've made a stand against Carmine Falcone. You're not a man. You sleep with him."

"Slept with him," Eddie says angrily. This stranger isn't going to solve them.

Suddenly there's a gun in Gilda's hand, and it's pointed at Eddie, right in their face. It's a .22--Not that Eddie's especially good at identifying guns, but if you've had one pointed in your face enough times, you recognize the make. Harvey's gun. Harvey's signature.

"You slept with my Harvey," she says.

"You want him, you can have him," Eddie says.

She does not immediately withdraw the gun. "You're lying. Why wouldn't you want him?"

It's like trying to explain to the Joker that they don't want to get too involved with bringing Batman down. Eddie's had a broken nose over that one. "Does it matter if I'm lying? He doesn't want me."

"Now that Harvey's better, I've come back to Gotham," Gilda says. "But will he want me, do you think? Now that I've committed so many crimes?"

"Worst-case scenario," Eddie says, "he's already shacking up with Bruce Wayne."

Gilda lets them live. Of course she does--you only kill real threats. So Eddie goes the only place that's left: Harvey.

Harvey is still bald (Eddie has questions: will it grow in white? everywhere? half?), and he's wearing slacks and an undershirt. He looks--not like Harvey. It's okay. Eddie doesn't look like Eddie. Both of them look prettier than they used to. ( _How far does_ your _surgery go?_ Eddie wants to ask.)

He opens the door and stares at Eddie.

"Well," he says.

"Hi," Eddie says. "Actually, can I come in? It's a little cold." It's not.

Harvey hesitates, then opens the door wider. It's a nice place. A little bare. Eddie waits for Harvey to make a joke about their face looking different, but this Harvey is too cautious. Like if he says the wrong thing, it'll turn him back.

"Sit down," he says.

"Rather not." Eddie glances around, trying to solve the riddles of Harvey's new living space. It's easy: fear. Jonathan would appreciate it.

"I met Mrs. Dent," they say.

"What?"

"Didn't you ever wonder what happened to her?" Eddie asks incredulously. "Your precious Gilda? Didn't you _care_?"

"She left town," Harvey says slowly. "To get away from me and what I'd done."

"What she'd done," Eddie guesses. Harvey doesn't confirm or deny, so Eddie goes on, "I don't think she'll come looking for you now. Thank me later. But I have to tell you, I'm not thrilled with this new you."

"Yeah?"

"For example," Eddie says, "I've heard you might be thinking about going a little further. After all, you know a _lot_ of our secrets."

Harvey scoffs, but a full five seconds too late. "Bullshit. What, you think I'll start hunting you down?"

Eddie holds his gaze. "Well, Harvey, you were the DA. And if this _cosmetic surgery_ has really brought back the old Harvey Dent, why would you do anything else?"

"You want to know if getting my mind back is going to make me turn on you."

_Getting his mind back._ If that's how Harvey thinks of it, he's stupid. He's not getting anything back; he's losing half of who he is.

"Turn on me," Eddie says, carefully keeping the pitch of their voice in check. "Well, you've already turned your back. Halfway there."

Harvey sighs. "Great. I was afraid you'd feel that way."

"Why not?" Eddie snaps. "I don't know, Harvey, you're damn lucky I learned to take care of myself, or you'd have blood on your hands already."

"What do you want from me?" Harvey demands. He's trying so hard to keep his temper, and Eddie feels the familiar little thrill of getting him to lose it. "Are you mad I broke my promise to protect you?"

"No," Eddie says flatly. They've never felt in control of Harvey before. They can't breathe. "I never expected you to be consistent. You're _Two-Face_. Do you know what your wife said? She said you've always been broken. That even when you were a gorgeous, productive member of society, you were always hideous underneath. I don't think she minded, though."

Harvey paces. Eddie can see behind him, into the bathroom. There's no mirror.

"Why are you here?" Harvey asks. "You look good. With a little help from Doctors Elliot and Crane?"

Eddie's surprised Harvey had the balls to mention Jonathan. Another person who should be pissed. "What about you?" they ask. "Elliot fixed you up, didn't he? And for the record, Jonathan didn't give me anything. No sanity pills, no _hormones_. Before you ask."

Harvey snorts, and that's always like the old Harvey--a sense of humor. "No? Well, let me know."

"If anything about my body becomes relevant to you again?" Eddie's voice isn't shaking. This isn't how a conversation with Harvey goes.

"It won't," Harvey says shortly. "I'm done. I'm out. I'm clear."

"Alcoholics are always alcoholics," Eddie says.

Harvey stares at them for a second. "Get out."

Eddie realizes that Harvey isn't going to hit them. He's not going to _touch_ them. So they go.

**What gets bigger the more you take away?**

"You're just digging yourself deeper."

Eddie squirms. Okay, Harvey caught him. Everybody caught him.

"A whole lot of people are pretty unhappy with you right now," Harvey says.

Eddie can see that. They only time they ever agree is when they're angry at him, or at someone else. Today it's him.

"I can't help it," he tries. Around the conference table in the dimly lit room, he can see a half a dozen faces not being impressed. The Joker looks murderous.

"Ask Jonathan!" Eddie says. "It's a compulsion! It's not my fault Batman's good at riddles!" Only this time, it wasn't just Eddie's plan that went bad. They should be glad, though. None of them wound up in Arkham. It isn't so bad.

(Except it is. Honor among thieves.)

"Come here," Harvey says.

Eddie bristles. "Why?" He's half buying time, half actually annoyed. "Who made you the boss? Last I checked, that was someone else." He doesn't need to look at the Joker. Everyone knows, and everyone knows Harvey and the Joker don't get along.

"Whose boss?" Harvey asks.

_Oh_.

"Show us how your dog stays on its leash, and we don't put it down," the Joker says. He hoots with laughter. "Dog. What would you be? A nasty little pekinese."

"Be a good boy, Eddie, and we'll forgive you," Harvey says.

Eddie can see Harvey trying not to meet his eyes, but he's not going to let him off so easily.

Harvey grabs Eddie by the throat and hauls him out of his seat. "I want to hear you apologize. To everyone."

"Because I'm your _good boy_? Fuck you, Harv, _fuck you_."

Harvey throws Eddie backward, sending him sprawling onto the table. "I'll ask you one more time while I flip this." His coin's in his hand.

Eddie doesn't say anything. He has a bad feeling about it.

Harvey flips the coin, but he doesn't show Eddie the result. He just tucks it back in his pocket and backhands Eddie across the face.

"Apologize."

Eddie's eyes water from the blow. "No." Just to be contrary. Just to push Harvey.

But pushing Harvey isn't always fun. Harvey shoves Eddie flat to the table and yanks his pants down.

"Fuck, don't," Eddie gasps, but the room is a riot of gasps and laughing and cheering. This is exactly their kind of sport.

"Apologize, or I'll make you, bitch," Harvey says. "In front of everyone."

"No," Eddie says, and the Joker laughs.

Harvey holds Eddie down while he strokes himself, getting hard while he digs the nails of his bad hand into Eddie's writhing chest, shoulder, hip. Eddie can't look at Jon or Ivy or Harley. Oswald isn't here today, and Eddie wonders if he'd stop it. Probably not.

Harvey holds Eddie still, ass in the air, face against the table and gets his cock inside. It hurts. It doesn't stop hurting as Harvey fucks him, snarling, "Apologize, you little slut, you little _animal_."

Eddie's makeup is running because he's _crying_.

"Touch yourself," Harvey commands loudly. Eddie can feel everyone's eyes on him. Even if Ivy is sympathetic, she's not stopping it. "I don't care if you like it, _do it_. And apologize while you do it."

Eddie hisses out a string of curse words. But he doesn't want to die. If the punishment is humiliation, well, he's used to that. He opens his eyes and looks sideways at the others. "I'm sorry," he says, meeting the Joker's eyes. "I'm sorry," meeting Ivy's.

"Louder," Harvey says.

"I'm sorry!" Eddie shouts, sobbing now. He thinks he's bleeding. "Please, please, I'm sorry, please--" His hand on his cock moves faster, dissonant, revolting. He's going to come looking into Jon's eyes.

He does, and Harvey lets him go. The others don't stick around too long--they got what they came for. Harvey's pet is leashed after all, not a threat to them.

Eddie lies on the table, breathing heavily. Harvey's still there.

"They would have killed you," Harvey says quietly. "I told you I'd protect you."

"I know," Eddie says. If this is teamwork, Eddie needs a new team.

He spends the night at Jonathan's hideout--house isn't accurate, and Eddie isn't sure what happened to Jonathan's nice house--because he has enough pride not to go home with Harvey and he doesn't dare go home alone.

Jonathan is sitting in the shabby little attic above the ancient drugstore when Eddie arrives.

"I left it unlocked," he says. His hair is unruly and his eyes are bright, but otherwise, he looks fairly sane. "I thought you might be coming, after tonight's . . . unpleasantness."

Eddie bangs the door frame with the flat of his hand. "If it upset you so much, you could have _stopped_ it."

Jonathan shakes his head briskly, all business. "Be realistic. And come in."

Eddie slams the door behind him and takes a seat on the floor next to Jonathan's dusty ottoman. There's something bubbling in a beaker in the corner. That's not psychiatry.

"I feel like shit," Eddie says.

"I'm not your primary care provider," Jonathan says.

Eddie leans against his leg. Tattered pants, patched with different fabrics. Harvey's not the only one with multiple choice identities, and this might not be a lucid day for Jonathan after all. Eddie wasn't paying the best attention before.

Eddie sighs. "Okay, doc. Distract me. Tell me what disorders everyone has."

"We're not _friends_ ," Jonathan hisses.

"You must at least know all their phobias." Eddie doesn't think he has any phobias, but he wears his fears on his sleeve. Maybe it'll make him feel better to know he's not the only one who has them.

Jonathan smiles dreamily. "Oh, yes. Most of them. The Joker's only afraid of winning."

Eddie relaxes a little against Jonathan's leg. "Yeah. Everybody says that. That if he ever got Batman to do what he wanted, he'd lose it. What about Ivy?"

"She's afraid of the Joker," Jonathan says, as if they all aren't. "But not for herself."

Eddie untangles the halfhearted riddle. "Me too," he says.

"Harvey isn't half the man he thinks he is, and that scares him," Jonathan muses. "Both halves. What did he do with you, after we left?"

Eddie frowns. "None of your business."

"Whether he apologized or raped you again, he left himself down," Jonathan said.

Eddie winces. "Don't. Fuck. Don't."

Jonathan's fingers are suddenly in Eddie's hair, tugging hair. "And you, Eddie? What are you so afraid of?"

So many things. Being seen. Being beaten up or tortured or raped or killed when he's seen. Being honest. Unlocked doors. Starving to death on the streets, or freezing. Arkham, always Arkham.

"What's to be afraid of?" he says. "It always happens, anyway. What about tonight? How the hell am I supposed to find things left to be scared of?"

Jonathan is looking at him so intensely. "But you do," he says. "You always do. You're afraid of more than anyone I've ever met."

_Except you_ , Eddie thinks viciously. "I don't think I can do this anymore, Jon."

"You'll feel differently tomorrow," Jonathan says. "I'll give you something for it."

"If you fucking gas me I'll fucking cry," Eddie says. He is crying. "Where else am I supposed to go?"

He ends up going to Selena's at four in the morning. She doesn't ask questions and she lets him sleep on the couch.

But despite all of that, it's a good summer. Eddie and Harvey get arrested together. They break out of Gotham together. They bother Jonathan together. They even pull off a few successful joint crimes, for which they're arrested again.

One hot night, they're sitting in Harvey's apartment on his expensive leather couch. Harvey's letting Eddie snuggle while they watch the news, which Harvey enjoys. The fan is on, and Eddie doesn't feel as jumpy as he sometimes does.

Harvey brushes his thumb across Eddie's cheek. "Look at you, glitterbug." Eddie's makeup has stained his cheek with green glitter.

Eddie laughs. "At least one of us makes an effort to be pretty."

Harvey turns too quickly, both sides of his fast twisting.

"A joke," Eddie says. "It was a joke, Harv. You know I think you're--"

"Don't insult me," Harvey says, relaxing again. "I know what I look like."

"Ah, well. I've always liked older men."

So half of Harvey's body is scarred with acid. Eddie's dated worse. Harvey has a house, a job (kind of), and nice things. He can cook. And he gets Eddie, at least enough. Eddie knows now that Harvey isn't just some rich asshole. They had the same childhood, except it sent them different places. And Harvey knows that Eddie isn't anyone's boyfriend.

That night, Harvey lets Eddie stay in his bed. They're naked, or Eddie is, and Harvey goes for the coin. He always does this. It's not exactly romantic.

"Uh," Eddie says. He's half hard already, and he's not thinking as clearly as he should be.

"Come here. What's the matter, Eddie, don't you trust me?"

Eddie doesn't trust either half of Harvey that much. Sleazy politician or maniac? What would you choose? He goes, though, inching over to Harvey on his knees.

Harvey kisses him hard, and Eddie runs his tongue over Harvey's bottom lip, feeling the place where the scarring begins. Fuck, that's good.

"Which side, Harv?" Eddie asks between kisses.

Harvey doesn't answer immediately. His hands are heavy on Eddie's wrists, and soon Eddie is squirming against him, still half terrified.

"Which side?"

"Why don't you _guess_? You like riddles."

Eddie's eyes are wide and he's shaking with exhilaration. Jon told him not to do this, he did, _Don't let him touch you when it lands the wrong way up, you won't like it_ , but Eddie's been playing that game before Jon ever started. Before Jon was even one of them. _I like it, but you don't._ Jon's wrong about that.

Jonathan has said lots of things about Harvey (of course he has). _He is going to fuck you over, Eddie._

By the end, Eddie still isn't sure which side it landed on. Harvey never shows him him. That's what's so exhilarating, and he knows what Jon would say about that. _That's part of your disorder._

Eddie does know that Harvey pulls his hair (but not too hard), presses the flat of his hand against Eddie's throat (but not till he chokes), and doesn't put anything but his fingers in when Eddie asks for that. And he says, "Good Eddie," under his breath when Eddie comes.

The next day, Harvey beats Eddie with his belt without asking first and leaves him bruised all over, even where it shows. Because it's a bad day and Harvey woke up on the wrong side. That's how Harvey works, but it's how a lot of other people work, too. Eddie thought, maybe, he wouldn't end up with an abusive boyfriend. He thought that.

The next night, they're parked at a gas station so Harvey can fuel his car, and Eddie starts crying and can't stop. Harvey growls at him to shut up, and then rubs his back till he stops. It's the best thing Eddie's got going.

**What's black and white and red all over?**

"A mime, after he's got what's coming to him!" the Joker howls with laughter.

Eddie isn't sure how he got into this situation. No, he is. He overshot. He thought he was braver than he was, and better at getting results.

Now he's in the Joker's dockside warehouse hideout, tied to a chair.

"Did I get it right?" the Joker croons, circling Eddie's chair. "Do I understand this riddle game, little riddle creature? _Tell_ me I'm doing well."

Eddie cringes back and makes appealing eyes at Harley. She's helped him out before.

She just shakes her head. "Uh uh. You bust in here to show Mr. J. you're all that? That ain't gonna end up good, Ed."

"Quite right!" The Joker gets right in Eddie's face, grinning and grinning. "Why did you decide to visit me today, _Eddie_?"

Eddie kicks his chair back a little, breathing fast. "I just wanted to you to know that I'm a player. I just wanted Harvey to see--"

The Joker's laughter drowns out Eddie's words.

Harley sighs and props her hammer against the wall with a _thunk_. "You're a sadder sight than I am, Ed. Least I know my sweetie loves me."

_Some friend you are,_ Eddie thinks.

"Do you know," the Joker says thoughtfully, "how I got this way? You are the little thing that has all the answers, aren't you?"

Eddie actually has a few ideas, but he's being a little more careful now. "I don't know," he says.

"Let me tell you," the Joker says gleefully. "When I was just sixteen . . ."

Eddie has heard three stories besides this one about how the Joker came to be. One came from the Mad Hatter, one from Harvey, and one from a reporter who the Joker had kidnapped. They all claimed to have heard the stories from him.

None of the stories mention the Red Hood, or a chemical factory. Eddie's done his research, and he's terrified to think that he might have solved that riddle. But Eddie understands keeping secrets. He's a question, and nobody has all the answers, not even him.

When the Joker has finished his story, he hits Eddie in the face. "I know what you're doing," he hisses. "Batman will follow your little clues and be _just so fascinated_. He's a detective. I understand." Then suddenly there's a knife in his hand and Eddie isn't sure where it came from and then Eddie is mostly screaming.

It's raining outside, and Eddie can't get up. He thinks it's later, but he doesn't know how much later.

He thinks he's solved it. The Joker's insanity is and isn't an act. All the garish, flashy stuff, that's entirely put on. Even the mood swings, partially. But the flat, terrifying part underneath, the part that hates and loves and breathes for Batman, that part is real.

That would be more exciting if he could move. He can't tell how badly he's hurt and how much he's just in pain. Harvey won't like this, and the Joker won't like Harvey not liking it, and then those two will be at each other's throats very seriously for a while. Eddie's fault.

"Hey."

Eddie squeezes his eyes shut.

"Kid."

It's one of the Joker's henchmen, one who stayed to watch. "He's gonna have it in for you," the guy says. "He couldn't mess you up like he wanted 'cause of Two-Face, and that makes him mad. You want to lie low."

"What do you suggest?" Eddie manages. It comes out garbled.

"You heard of the Penguin? He's got a club, the Iceberg Lounge. He'll look out for you. He's not like--" He jerks a thumb over his shoulder. "Mostly _regular_ crime, just a little eccentric. Downtown." He glances back. "Gotta go."

Eddie would as why, but he knows. Everybody feels bad for him. That's how well he's doing.

He makes it there in about forty-five minutes. On the way, he assesses the damage and determines that he has a broken nose and a broken finger, but otherwise it's just cuts and bruises. That _is_ lucky.

The Iceberg Lounge is hard to miss. It's flashy, and somewhere between garish and classy. Eddie approves. He glances at the bouncer who is, not shockingly, bigger than him.

"Uh," he says. "The Riddler? I want to see your boss? I'm--the Joker just--" His voice sounds like shit.

The bouncer shrugs at him. "You know what? Go on in. He's been wanting to meet you."

Great.

Eddie limps in and is immediately taken away from the pulsing sound and bright lights to a back room. The woman who led him there knocks on an inner door and disappears back into the club.

Eddie shivers. It's cold in here.

The Penguin comes out a moment later. Eddie hasn't seen pictures, but he knows it's him.

"So," the Penguin says. "It's about time. Harvey should have introduced you sooner. I'm Oswald."

Eddie nods. He wants to cry. He wants to lie down. "Eddie. Hi."

"I've heard good things," Oswald says. "If the Joker's left you in one piece, he's probably trying to figure out what else he can do to you. You'd better go in the back. Hot shower?"

Eddie stares at him. "Why?" he asks.

Oswald frowns. "I am a _businessman_. I don't put up with a lot of nonsense, and that includes people attacking my colleagues. And don't consider getting attached. I don't do that, either."

Eddie stares, open-mouthed. "Oh," he says. "So, the shower."

When he gets out of the shower, still shaking with pain, but feeling a little bit better, he hears voices in the hall. Oswald is talking to someone.

"Listen, you know the Riddler?"

"Oh yes, I know Eddie," Oswald says. "They're an odd duck."

_What are you doing?_ Eddie wants to scream. _What are you_ saying?

"But they haven't been here tonight, nor any time this week," Oswald continues. "Next time, my good man, don't barge in through the back door and upset the dancers."

There's another muffled exchange and then the voices quiet. Eddie presses his hands against his face and yelps at the pain from his nose.

Osward pokes his head back in. "Ah, I see you found the bathrobe. That was one of Harvey's men, I believe, but I think it would be better if you stayed here tonight. I don't imagine he's thrilled with you, either."

Eddie's voice is shot, but he croaks, "Thanks." He should ask. He will. "Oswald--You said--they. You said they."

"Yes," Oswald says. "That's more accurate, isn't it?"

Maybe Selena was right. Maybe Eddie should have come here in the first place.

He stays there two more days, getting to know some of the dancers and keeping away from the war Harvey and the Joker are waging against each other. Oswald even sets his broken finger for him. He meets a lot of the girls who work there, and that's why he can't bear to stay longer. He's like some of them. He is some of them. But he can't be. He isn't brave, he's just clever, and he has to go home before he can solve himself too thoroughly to turn back.

His apartment is still in one piece, although the electricity has been shut off again. He paces furiously to keep warm, walking back and forth between the ugly blue lamp shaped like a dog that won't turn on. When he can't stand pacing anymore, he tucks his feet up under him on the hideous couch next to the hideous lamp and thinks about crying. He's going to cry. Instead of crying, he could drink a beer. "Don't be a freak," he whispers. He needs a beer. He hates beer. Oh god.

Sometimes Eddie can almost see what Jonathan does--everything stretched, monstrous, pushed to the limits of believability. Jonathan himself becomes a gaunt, twisted form with long limbs waving at odd angles. Oswald is hunched, squawking mass. Ivy is naked except for the vines, pulsing, throbbing.

This part of Gotham is a menagerie of the grotesque, and Eddie can see all too easily where he fits in. Young queer in drag, leaping through someone else's limelight. Probably that's all Batman sees. Probably that's even what the others see.

Eddie doesn't want that. Eddie wants more.

**I make you weak at the worst of all times.  
** I keep you safe, I keep you fine.  
I make your hands sweat, and your heart grow cold,  
I visit the weak, but seldom the bold. 

Going to Arkham is much worse when he isn't processed through the courts first. He asks Harvey once if that's legal and Harvey just laughs and says there's a reason he stopped being a lawyer.

For one thing, they don't always take his clothes. Orange jumpsuits and straightjackets may be unappealing, but at least they don't show every doctor who comes by just what kind of freak he is.

About six months after he starts, Eddie ends up in Arkham for the third time, in smeared makeup and a green bodysuit. Bad news.

They take him to a cell (by himself, which is new, and hopeful), and leave him for a day. The next day, they get him up early and drag him into a nicely furnished office--Not Doctor Arkham's, he's seen that already.

This doctor is younger, maybe five years older than Eddie, and instead of wearing a white coat, he's dressed more like a professor. He's also gorgeous. _Wow_ , Eddie thinks, looking at his mouth. _I'll bet he gives amazing head._ But Eddie's mostly too rattled to care. He's tired, scared, and disoriented, and this doctor is an unknown quantity. Too many questions.

"Oh, sit down, Edward," the doctor says in a soft, polite voice. The guards cuff Eddie to a chair and, at a look from the doctor, get out.

Eddie shifts as much as he can--not much--and looks around the room. There's a large volume on the doctor's desk. Eddie's seen it before, although most of the doctors don't actually use it. Maybe this one's more professional. Is that better or worse? No red flags.

"My name is Doctor Crane, Edward."

"Eddie," he says automatically.

Crane nods and makes a note on the legal pad resting on his knee. "Eddie. I understand that you're to be released."

"What?" Eddie's broken out before, but he's never been released.

"If," Crane says softly, "I clear you."

_Okay_. Eddie narrows his eyes. "Got it. So what's the deal? They took all my money when Batman got me arrested. I could blow you, but you could get that from anyone. So what is it?"

Crane raises his eyebrows. "I don't want a bribe, Eddie. I just want proof that you are, in fact, sane. Let's chat."

He flips open a slim file from his desk. "Arkham's data-collection methods are a little archaic, as I'm sure you're aware, but I've made a special study of Gotham's so-called costumed criminals."

Eddie is already bored. His head aches, and he wants to go back to bed. "So tell me."

"This says you have a genius-level IQ," Crane reads. "By your own admission." He gives Eddie a slightly eerie smile. "That's nice. High self-esteem."

"Ha," Eddie says.

Crane doesn't acknowledge the joke. "Let me see," he says. "Born in Gotham, yes? And you're nineteen now?"

"Twenty yesterday." Eddie's willing to play nice if it gets him out.

Crane frown and scribbles a correction in his file. "And you've been doing this--how long?"

"The _crime?_ " Eddie tries not to smirk. "Not long. About eight months."

Doctor Crane leans forward. "And why do you do it?"

Eddie wishes he could push his chair back a few inches. "Money?" he suggests. "Thrills?" Both not entirely false.

Crane click his tongue and adjusts his classes. "Now, now. If that were true, you wouldn't be Arkham. You'd be in prison."

Eddie doesn't say anything. He's uncomfortable again, and there's something about Doctor Crane and makes his skin crawl. There's a very long silence.

"Why did you get caught?" Doctor Crane's eyes are very bright.

"I leave clues." Eddie's knuckles are white. "That's in the file."

"But _why_?"

Eddie tries to unclench his teeth. The light is flickering, just often enough to drive him crazy. "It's a compulsion." Eddie repeats it by rote. It's what he always says and they never believe it.

"OCD," Doctor Crane suggests. "What would happen if you didn't?"

Eddie doesn't want to shut his eyes, but he does. "They'd find me. And hurt me."

Doctor Crane doesn't ask who. He says, "They find you and hurt you when you _do_ leave clues."

Eddie shrugs. "That's why it's a disorder, I guess. I have a few of those."

The doctor stares at him. Then he rattles off a string of numbers--codes from his book, Eddie thinks.

"A few," Eddie repeats.

Doctor Crane stands up and paces back and forth. His movements are weirdly stilted in a way Eddie can't place--too careful, too contained. "Eddie," he says, turning around, "would you like to see my mask?"

"Your--?" The room is too hot. Eddie can't think. "I don't--"

"You want to go home, don't you, Eddie? To whatever little hole rats like you crawl out of?" His voice is still calm, flat, controlled. This is more like Arkham.

"I want to go home," Eddie says.

"Then let me show you." The doctor goes to a chest in the corner of the room and takes out a piece of ragged burlap. He pulls it over his face and turns to Eddie.

Something else happens, something that smells dusty and acidic, but Eddie can't think about it because he's too busy screaming. Doctor Crane is a monster. Eddie chokes on being ten years old and getting backhanded across the room by his father, having Harvey's coin land the wrong way up, being left alone in a room with Falcone, losing his job, walking home in the dark by himself--

He's screaming for help, and the monster is laughing. "Eddie," it says is a distorted growl, "No one can hear you." It grabs Eddie by the throat and digs its claws in.

He blacks out, sobbing.

When it wakes up again, he's still cuffed the chair, and Doctor Crane is sitting across from him. The burlap mask is nowhere to be seen, and Crane looks unruffled and put-together once more.

"What did you do to me?" Eddie croaks.

Crane frowns. "Thank goodness. I was afraid you wouldn't come around. You just started screaming and passed out. What on earth did you think you saw?"

Eddie hesitates. His throat is still raw from screaming. He knows what he saw. He thinks he knows.

"What are you?"

Crane frowns more deeply and scribbles something on his pad. "Eddie, I'm afraid it doesn't look as if I'm going to be able to recommend your release after all. I'm sorry, I had high hopes, but you're just not well."

Eddie shuts up and bites his lip to keep from crying again. He knows.

He thinks he knows. He's not insane. He's not insane like _that_. Well--hardly ever, not really, not--

He tries to tell the guards when they come to get him, but not very hard.

That's before Jonathan loses his job.

**What is yours but your friends use it more than you do?**

"Ed!"

_Go to hell_ , Eddie thinks. Not again. He just got his costume together. He's supposed to be going out tonight.

"Haven't seen you around since you got canned."

Okay, okay. Eddie turns around. Three big guys. He only recognizes two of them from his former job.

"Hey, Ed, I hear you like sucking dick, huh?"

Fuck. Eddie's  shirt is stuck to his skin with sweat. It's so hot out.

"Uh huh," he says. "Sure."

"Yeah? You wanna suck my dick? You wanna suck my buddy's dick?"

"Okay," Eddie says, and in trying not to sound scared, he ends up sounding too bored. The biggest guy, Dave, hits him.

It's getting dark out, and they're way too close to an alley. Eddie stumbles backwards, reeling from the blow, and they're a little closer.

Eddie would fight back, but he's not stupid. He can see how that would go. And if he called the cops he'd say what? "I'm the costumed criminal who robbed six convenience stores last night?" No.

Dave hits him again and shoves him into the alley and onto his knees, but that's as far as he gets. Someone comes flying down from above and kicks the guy hard enough in the side of the head that the other two back off. Then they're running, because the masked figure isn't going to stop hitting them. For a second Eddie thinks it's Batman. It isn't.  
Selena Kyle is horrible at riddles.

"Listen, honey, if you want to sell it, I can find you a safer way."

Now they're sitting in her apartment (nicer than Eddie's, but mostly because it's neater) and she's wearing normal clothes now, not the cat outfit.

"That's not what was going on." Eddie's teeth have finally stopped chattering. "They attacked me. That's all you can think of? Everyone's right. You are a whore."

Her eyes flash. "Not me. But I can help, if you stop being a jackass."

"Sorry," Eddie says doggedly, "but I don't want that." Not like it never crossed his mind. "I need a job, though. Crime literally doesn't pay if you're terrible at it."

"The Penguin," Selena says. "He has a club that sometimes does drag shows. If you want that."

"You know, it's not drag," Eddie says. He wipes his hand across his eyes and his fingers come away bright with glitter.

"Oh, then you're--"

" _No_ ," Eddie says, finally losing his temper. Eddie isn't here to be solved.

"Who were those guys, anyway?"

Eddie shrugs. "Oh, work friends." If Eddie had a job anymore. If Eddie had friends. "What is it about me?"

Selena looks at him calmly. "They can tell they're not the first."

Eddie finally lets Selena put him to sleep on the couch, but he doesn't take any of her advice. He makes his own plan. If he wants to do this right, he needs a sponsor. He needs protection.

And who better than Carmine Falcone, king of Gotham's underworld?

Stupid. Eddie can be so brilliant and so stupid. Falcone's guys follow the clues and find Eddie in one of their storage units with a lot of their money.

"Hi," Eddie says.

Falcone--yeah, the man himself actually came, that's how good Eddie is--points a very large gun at Eddie. "I don't know who the hell you are, kid--"

"The Riddler," Eddie says, quoting the only paper that's mentioned him so far.

Falcone grimaces. He's taller than Eddie thought he'd be. "Another one of you costumed freaks. I don't know who you think you are, but in my day, Gotham didn't have any of you fags running around."

_I'm alone in a storage unit with six guys who are all bigger than me,_ Eddie thinks. _This might not actually end well._ All his plans fall apart after a point, he's learning quickly.

"I was hoping we could make a deal," he says.

Falcone laughs. "Yeah? Keep talking. No, wait, let me guess. I watch your back, and you offer me--what? What could you possibly do for me?"

Falcone's men are looking anywhere from murderous to curious, and Eddie doesn't know which he's more scared by.

"Trust me," Eddie says, "you can't access the _real_ underworld. You know that. You think we're freaks, but we're the ones dividing Gotham in pieces."

Falcone is quiet for a minute. Then he says, "Nice try. If it was the Joker or someone coming to me with this, I might think about it for at least a minute or two. But you're nobody, kid. And you're in my territory." He turns to one of his men. "I'm gonna walk out of here and lock the door. You've got fifteen minutes before I open it.

_Oh_ , Eddie thinks. _I might die._

But he doesn't. Falcone isn't even done turning away before a bullet whistles past his ear, narrowly missing Eddie, too. Standing in the doorway is someone else Eddie has only seen in the papers.

"Hey, Falcone," Two-Face growls. "You have something of mine."

Falcone turns, glowering, to Eddie. "This little scrap? You're kidding me. You're getting sentimental in your madness, Dent."

"You're getting lucky," Two-Face corrects. He holds up a coin between thumb and forefinger. "Otherwise that bullet would have been buried in your skull. Come on, you." He jerks his head at Eddie.

Eddie, speechless and impressed, hops up and gets out, not stupid enough to stay. Two-Face follows him a minute later.

"So, thanks?" Eddie says.

"Get in the car," Two-Face snaps.

Eddie eyes the black, expensive-looking car pulled up at an angle behind Falcone's and tries to calculate the odds that he'll end up more dead that way. Too many variables, not enough information. He goes for it. At least Two-Face is handsome.

In the car, Eddie tries not to stare. That's probably rude. "Can I call you Harvey?" he asks.

"No," Two-Face says. "What's your story, kid?"

Eddie watches the road and thinks about it. "I lost my job and now I do this. Same as you, right? Just less public. I'm Eddie."

Two-Face nods. "You're going to get killed out there, Eddie."

"And why do you care?"

"You ask a lot of questions," Two-Face says, turning so Eddie can see his ugly side.

Eddie shrugs and looks meaningfully at his costume and its question marks.

Two-Face scoffs. "Yeah, I get it. The Question?"

"The Riddler," Eddie says with dignity. "Riddle me this: What is never used by the maker, never needed by the buyer, never known by the user?"

"I hate riddles," Two-Face says. He pulls up in front of a classy block of brownstones. "I'll tell you why I saved you. Because you got just as lucky as Falcone. There were two bullets in the gun. But I hate him more than I hate most people, and you're too stupid to die. What _were_ you going to offer him?"

Eddie looks Two-Face up and down. "Would you like me to tell you?"

They have dinner in Two-Face's tastefully furnished bachelor pad, and they talk about crime, and how to avoid Batman (Eddie has, so far), and what Eddie can do for Two-Face. It turns out Eddie is better at security systems than Two-Face (he thought he might be) and much less conspicuous. He gets the sense, though, that Two-Face's offer to protect him has a little more to do with the fact that Harvey Dent is someone you _should_ believe in. He's a nice guy.

Eddie sits on Two-Face's couch, vibrating with tension and wondering if he can get Two-Face to kiss him, and what the scarred half of his lips feels like.

"How old are you, anyway?" Two-Face asks. He's toying with his coin.

"Nineteen," Eddie says, wincing slightly.

"Just out of high school." Two-Face plays the coin across the back of his knuckles. "You're smart. You must have gone somewhere nice."

Eddie shakes his head. "My school was just school. It was pretty much terrible. I got beat up a lot. Called a fag."

"Are you a fag?"

Eddie shrugs. "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck . . . but that wouldn't be a very good riddle, would it?"

Two-Face watches him with curiosity and flips the coin.

Eddie spends the night, which is a mistake, because the police are already looking for Two-Face in connection with two large-scale bank robberies.

That's how Eddie ends up on trial and, shortly after, on the way to being locked up. He's a little relieved (and a lot insulted) when they make a case for insanity. He's heard things about Arkham, though.

"So, Arkham Asylum," he says. "Tell me honestly, how fucked am I?" It's Eddie's first time being laughed at by a lawyer. Not the last.

When they check Eddie in, he's still smiling and asking questions. The receptionist behind bulletproof glass shakes her head at him and says, "Kid, who do you think you are?"


End file.
